Nursing in the Bathroom - Would You Eat There?

I was recently turned on to what I would say is the best breastfeeding awareness campaign I have ever seen in my life.

The commercial consists of a man sitting on a toilet seat eating his lunch in a bathroom stall. This man is listening to loud noises, flushing toilets, and other unpleasant noises. The man looks very uncomfortable in the bathroom stall. Fortunately for him the bathroom stall looks relatively clean, but we all know this isn't the norm.

The commercial ends with a very important statement, "You wouldn't eat here, so why should a baby?" It goes on to flash the caption stating that, "Breastfeeding in public is a mother's right."

According to the July 2007 update of the National Conference of State Legislature , "Thirty-nine states have laws with language specifically allowing women to breastfeed in any public or private location (Alabama, Alaska,Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana,Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma,Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming). "

Unfortunately eleven states are missing from this list. The fact that breastfeeding in public isn't normalized and we need to have these laws in the first place is a little backwards. Think about it, according to the New York Times, "about 70 percent of mothers start breastfeeding immediately after birth, but less than 20 percent of those moms are breastfeeding exclusively six months later." Could the fact that Americans are so quick to sexualize the breast have something to do with mothers weaning prior to six months.

If you follow a feed on demand schedule that most breastfeeding professionals advocate, you will inevitably be in public when your child needs to nurse. You have a decision to make, do you nurse your child discretely where you are, or do you go to the bathroom and "hide."

It is a personal choice. A mother may not feel comfortable breastfeeding in public. What we need to do is ask ourselves why she feels that way. Breastfeeding is not a sexual act, but Americans look at anything to do with breasts as sexual. The sexualization of breasts is making women uncomfortable nursing in public. It makes them feel as though they need to hide when they are taking care of their child's most basic need.

If breastfeeding was seen as a normal everyday part of life, women would lose that sense of fear over breastfeeding in public. We in America, the land of the free, are a long way from this. We still have eleven states where breastfeeding in public is not even protected.

Babies were born to breastfeed, and we need to do what we can to support this.